Ministry & Family with LJ Harry

**Episode Title: Ministry and Family**

**Guest: Reverend L. J. Harry**

**Summary:**

In this insightful episode, we sit down with Reverend L. J. Harry to discuss the challenging task of balancing ministry with family life. Reverend Harry shares his practical strategies for maintaining equilibrium, including his use of tools like Microsoft Bookings to manage his schedule and protect family time. This conversation delves into the importance of setting boundaries, the pitfalls of a Messiah complex, and the necessity of delegating tasks to avoid burnout.

**Key Insights:**

1. **Setting Boundaries with Technology:**
   - Reverend Harry uses Microsoft Bookings to streamline his scheduling, ensuring he has dedicated family time.
   - This approach minimizes the back-and-forth of scheduling conflicts and respects both personal and professional commitments.

2. **Messiah Complex and Balance:**
   - Harry identifies the Messiah complex as a significant obstacle to achieving balance, emphasizing that ministers need to remember they are not indispensable.
   - Recognizing one's limits and delegating responsibilities is crucial to avoid burnout and remain effective in ministry.

3. **Family First:**
   - Personal anecdotes highlight the importance of prioritizing family, such as scheduling family days and recognizing when professional commitments start to intrude on personal life.
   - Ensuring regular family time helps prevent feelings of neglect among loved ones and maintains healthy relationships.

4. **Delegation and Training Successors:**
   - Emphasizing the need for delegation, Harry encourages young ministers to train others to take on tasks, ensuring continuity and relieving personal workload.
   - The practice of delegating responsibilities not only fosters leadership in others but also allows for a more sustainable ministry practice.

5. **Disorganization as an Obstacle:**
   - Disorganization can severely impact balance, making it essential to have a structured approach to manage tasks and commitments.
   - Tools and strategies for better organization can help create necessary margins for rest and personal time.

6. **Overcoming Insecurity:**
   - Harry addresses the insecurity many young ministers face, reassuring them that their value is inherent as children of God, not solely based on their ministerial roles.
   - This perspective helps combat the constant need for validation through busyness and external achievements.

**Recommendations:**

- **Book:** *Addicted to Busy* by Brady Boyd - A profound read on the dangers of a busy lifestyle and finding balance.
- **Podcast:** LJ Harry’s own podcast series, where he discusses similar themes and provides further insights into maintaining balance in ministry.
- **YouTube Channel:** *Beyond the Mic with Mike* - Explore more episodes with added video illustrations for an enriched listening experience.

**Conclusion:**

Reverend L. J. Harry’s wisdom on balancing ministry and family offers valuable lessons for ministers at all stages of their journey. By setting boundaries, delegating tasks, and prioritizing personal time, ministers can achieve a sustainable and fulfilling life. Tune in to this episode for practical advice and inspiring anecdotes that underscore the importance of balance in ministry.

Transcript

 Today's episode is titled, Ministry and Family. We're joined with Reverend L. J. Harry.  What an exciting opportunity. We're going to be talking about balance and balancing ministry with your life and with your family.

He definitely has that. I can tell you how hard it was to get him on here. He is  juggling everything. It's going to be quite the conversation. LJ, thank you for coming on the show today. Hey, thank you so much. 

I'm grateful to be here and grateful for your patience with me to make this happen.  

I'm all in.  If you don't mind, and I can edit this out if you do, but I want to tell the viewers about the process to schedule with you.

Is that okay?  Yes, sir. That's fine. Because that's impressive. Let me tell you,  the viewers know your name. Okay. Let's not kid ourselves. Okay. You, you have a reputable name. You work at headquarters. You speak across the country. People know who LJ Harry is. You know, you've got books out there that you're popular.

Okay. Let's, let's not kid ourselves.  And I've reached out to other popular names.  But they have not responded  and some have very graciously have responded, but  four months later I'm still trying to get a date because they're busy. But what this  wise gentleman has done in order to balance is he has subscribed to Microsoft bookings and has synced his calendar with his life and there were no evening bookings available.

I'm so sorry. Because that's a, that's what's convenient for me. But he's protecting his family and,  and then you select what kind of, what kind of meeting you want. Is it a phone call? Is it a podcast? Is it an interview? Anyway, you select it and there's a certain time frame. If it's 15, if it's 30, if it's an hour. 

Man, I was thoroughly impressed. It's a, not. Just the organization, but that you made yourself available in an organized way. So I shared that with my pastor and I was really impressed. 

Well, I, I appreciate that. The first time I saw anything like that, it was, the program was called Calendly or the app. And I almost felt a little put off by the person  like telling me, basically, you're going to have to find a time that's good for me.

And it felt a little bit arrogant. But then I realized the wisdom of if we don't do that, we're going to do this. What does Wednesday look like? No. Okay. How about Thursday? No. All right. Let's go Friday. No, I'm out of town Friday. Okay. How about next Wednesday? No, I'm going to be like, you just go back and forth and back and forth.

This just finds a time that's open for you. Time that's open for me. And you choose the first one that, that works for you. So it seems to help keep everything in balance. And I do apologize for the no evening, but that's, I really guess all part of balance and boundary is I've got to set a limit somewhere where I can do professional stuff as much as I can during office hours and anything personal I really need to reserve for my family or the church I'm involved in, that kind of thing.

So once again,  thanks for your patience and God bless you. And willing to make that concession 

and for the record for the like, he meant I can see the, cause he was kind of hesitant when I mentioned it, I saw the, I'm looking at him on zoom and he was kind of hesitant. No, this is a good thing. Okay. I appreciate it.

I was early. No, I mean that I told my pastor, I told other pastors, I said, look at this, this is how it's. Done. And I was not and I appreciate that. And I understood why you didn't have anything. I said, that's, that's called margins. You know, you've got to, I don't write in the margins. We got to stick between the margins.

So 

that's exactly right.  

Well, and that was a good segue to our topic. We're talking about ministry and balancing and it's  any podcast, any ministry podcast is going to have a topic about balance and balancing. So listen to them all because we all have a different flavor. Right. LJ, what do you think  possibly is the  biggest obstacle?

What's the, what's the greatest enemy to balance it? 

I think one is a Messiah complex. If  all of those who are listening, presumably our young ministers. So all of us want to do something great for God. We want our life to matter. We want to matter. We want to be needed as part of our, our desire to be affirmed, to be needed, to be valued. I mean, if you ask somebody  how they're doing and they say, Oh man, I'm really busy.

Most of us see that as some kind of a badge of honor. Wow. Yeah. You're busy. You're important. You're doing stuff,  but  we're not the Messiah. We can't save everybody. So in order to,  to keep that. in perspective, I think we have to be balanced. Otherwise, we're gonna go, go, go, go, go, go, go until we don't have anything left to give.

And then we're no good to anybody, not to our family, not to our church family, not to the people we're trying to minister to. So I, I really think the biggest obstacle is this Messiah complex. So I think the best way to overcome that Is when you get out of bed, your feet hit the floor, you just say, I am not the Messiah.

I point people to him. I introduced them to him. I tell stories about him. I,  I write about him. I teach about him. I preach about him, but I am not him.  That's good. And we've actually had a podcast episode about the Messiah complex earlier on way back. You're absolutely right. I told you, you and I have a kindred spirit.

Yes, 

you could 

be, which one of us is Anne Shirley and who's Diana Barry? 

You, you were talking about the Messiah complex, but  I couldn't help, but remember what a banker told me, a bank teller. And this is a weak analogy, but it made sense to me when it, when I was listening to you, I remember being at the bank and there was just everybody was there and people were getting impatient.

And I was actually inside the bank. Okay. This is I'm dating myself now. I was not at the doctor. I was standing in line inside the bank and everybody was impatient and just being rude. And when I got up to the teller, I said, I'm sorry that we're all here at the same time. And she looked at me. She goes, I can only help one customer at a time.

It's okay. Okay.  

Wow. I mean, that's wisdom right there.  

And in minutes, absolutely right. Yep. You can only help just do what you can do. And don't get overwhelmed by what you can't 

do. Right. I also think there's,  when it comes to balance and obstacles, I think there's this innate fear within us that if I say no to something, I'm never going to begin, get invited to anything else.

Like I've heard people say before, I don't know, I don't really, I really can't afford to go to that. But if I don't go, or if I say no, I may never get another invitation. Right. And that's that, that insecurity that says. If I don't get invited, I don't have value. Well, man, that's not true at all. Our value, I'm, I'm a child of God.

I'm not,  I'm not a preacher. I'm a child of God who preaches. I'm a child of God who directs curriculum at PRG. So  that,  that fear, and all of us have it, we've got to somehow overcome that and realize my value doesn't come from what I do, it comes from who I am, it really comes from whose I am, and I belong to Him. 

Absolutely. We're always looking for validation in the wrong ways.  

There's a, there's a song looking for love in all the wrong places.  I think that was, I think that was the Gaithers. I'm sure it was. I can't remember who the artist is, but let's say, let's say that.  We'll believe it. Or Chick fil A fans will be fine with that.  What's the biggest help to balance?  Well, I, I think  certainly pastoral leadership is a, is a great help. Family is a great help. I mean, I, I had a time, this really just  caused me to slam on the brakes. I was walking out the door. My little girl Rayleigh was, I don't know, she might've been six or seven or so at the time.

And as I'm walking out the door, I said, bye baby. And she said, I love you. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I was walking to the door. I said, I love you, baby. And she said, bye.  And she equated,  I love you with dad's leaving again. And I thought, oh man, if the only time I tell her I love her is when I'm leaving, something's wrong  and I'm leaving too much.

So I, that helped me to slam on the brakes a little bit.  I also started to incorporate it into my calendar family days where.  After all the dates have been plotted, the general, let's say the, the general conference dates, youth congress, all those major nationwide national dates are plotted, the district dates, the church dates and all that at the end of the year,  then I have plotted what I call family days.

So, one, maybe two weekends a month, I will put typically one weekend, Friday, Saturday, or both, I will write family day. So, let's say somebody calls up and says, hey man, we got a youth rally coming up, we'd love for you to preach it. If Friday is a family day, I tell them, I'd love to, but I'm already scheduled.

Because I'm scheduled with my family. And that, I try to protect that. As much as I would protect  another invitation, so I don't double book. Right. And even if one week is just crazy busy, I can tell my family, Hey, I know it's really busy this week. I know we're going a lot. But this coming Friday,  we're not doing anything.

We're going to order pizza. We're going to just stay in. We're going to have a great time. We're going to go as a family somewhere and give them a little bit of hope that It's busy now, but  a free day is coming.  That's one way to help with that.  

I'm going to be transparent and that's a very, what you said is true, but I'm going to, I thought about my situation and I allowed myself to get unbalanced.

And here's what the situation I pastored full time. Well, I say full time, you know, by vocational, but I was lead pastor. And while I had a couple of guys helping me, they're not assistant pastor. So I was the pastor, but my job requires me to travel a lot.  At least, at least one week a month, I am gone seven days in a row.

Oh, wow. My friend. 

And for a while there, it could have been two weeks. Sometimes it's three weeks. But it's gotten better to where it's guaranteed to be just one week now. And that's. That, that, that's the minimum and, and we're thankful that it's just that. But it was gone. I was gone enough that whenever I was home,  felt like I had to be at church  because I've already gone from the church.

Sure. I know 

I've missed, I've missed Easter. How many pastors are gone for Easter service because they're at work?  And then  I took my wife  to Orlando a couple of weeks ago because she graduated RN school and that was my first.  Non work related vacation. 

Oh, friend. 

In 10 years?  Oh, that's so tough. That's so tough.

Non work or church related. Right. But what do you do? I mean, when you're tied.  

Right. 

I know.  And the church was already,  I'm just being transparent. 

What do 

you 

do? No, you're, you're okay. You're all right. And, and I get that. And there are some situations. Like yours that feel like there's no way to have balance  it goes back I do think it goes back to this Messiah complex not that we feel like we're the only one who can  But sometimes we feel like if we don't do it, nobody else will Or, sometimes we feel like nobody else can do it, and certainly nobody else could do some of those things as well as we could do.

Whether it's our personality, whether it's whatever, style, creativity, whatever.  But I remember,  if Jesus was willing to tell his disciples, I'm going to go away.  And when I go away, I'm going to give you what I have so you can do what I did. In fact, you can even do greater works than these. I think if Jesus  physically was replaceable,  and by that I mean if he was able to go away and delegate to his disciples his mission,  certainly I am too. 

So I, I think what Paul wrote in Philippians one, where he said, approve that which is excellent, which that would be in Lisa Turkhurst's words, the book she wrote, The Best Yes, where basically you take a look at the things that you are created to do, that God fashioned you to do, and you do those things.

Some call it only do what only you can do, then delegate the rest. So this kind of, this also goes into the act six principle where the disciples say, we, we are called. To teach and to pray.  We need others to serve in the food pantry. We need others to serve in these areas. Not that we're better than that, we just don't have enough time to do both of them.

So if we have to approve that, which is excellent, we're gonna do what only we can do and delegate the rest.  I know there are also financial  concerns where some people are working two, three jobs pastoring, youth pastoring, bi-vocational and I, I get those situations are almost impossible to achieve balance.

I do think we need to strive for it. But it's very difficult to achieve it. That's where a mentor, a pastor, can really help. If there are blind spots, if we feel like I'm the only one who can, that pastor can speak into our lives and say, Well, have you considered my servant, Joe? Have you thought about them?

What about, can they do this? Can they take this off your plate?  When I was, when I was pastoring. I would one day I made a list of all the things I was doing, and I had a lot of hats when I was pastoring. This is easier to say all of this now because my life is more balanced doing this role. But when I was pastoring, I was a police chaplain.

I was in the jails. We were doing Celebrate Recovery. I was of course pastoring. I was the Ohio News editor for our district magazine. I was helping out the district office as a consultant for it.  So I had all these different areas and roles. Most of them were volunteers. Some paid.  And I realized, I can't keep this up.

This is an unsustainable pace.  So here's,  Mike, here's what's odd,  is when the Lord opened this door for me to come here.  Everything I was doing there,  somebody else is doing it right now.  And they may not be doing it the same way I did it, but they are doing it, which means I was replaceable. I am dispensable.

And one day, hopefully it's a long day from now, but one day I'll close my eyes here. I'll open them up in glory. And the things I'm doing, this desk where I am right now, somebody will be sitting at this desk. If the Lord hasn't come yet, if he has, and they're sitting at this desk, that's not good. But  if he hasn't come yet, somebody else will do this job. 

Now, I also know this, nobody else can be McKenna and Rayleigh's dad and Andrea's husband, at least not right now, because I'm still around.  But there will be a day where somebody else will do my job, somebody else will be the associate pastor at Restoration Church, somebody else will be preaching the camp that I was preaching last year.

Like, it's just that whole thing, so I have to come to grips with the fact. I'm replaceable, therefore,  I have to approve that which is excellent,  find out what God created me to do, do that, and try to delegate the rest.  

That's good. But you mentioned that word delegate, delegate that's not always possible to my listener. 

Right. Because my listeners are not necessarily in leadership. Sure. And I'm not rebutting you. We're just having a conversation. Oh 

no, 

this 

is good. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because.  It needs to be played out in real life. This needs to work in real life. 

So my listener is aimed for the new minister. Yes.

The guy that gets the guy or girl that gets asked to speak occasionally and  may not be in charge of anything, but gets told what to do. 

Yes, absolutely. 

I had a,  well, I done said it now I had a pastor that, that believed and it's not brother Aldridge for those listening. No.  Let's just say that I was very literally in church seven days a week.

Okay, sure. And I'll, I'll tell you now that I don't agree with that and I believe that's an unhealthy schedule. Sure.  I didn't have a way to delegate my choices were no, sir, or yes, sir, but I couldn't there was no delegate. So sure. Delegation is not always the, you know,  can, can you speak to how to politely tell a pastor?

No, or how to handle when to say that instead of delegate. 

Yeah, so I, I was talking with a young man, a young minister, about this very topic and, and he told, he met me at district conference and he said something to the effect of, Hey man, you know, I thought about what you said about balance and margin and all that and I told my pastor, you know, Saturday's my Sabbath.

Now, apparently he and his pastor had an agreement.  Saturday would be his Sabbath. And he said, so my pastor asked me to do anything on Saturday. I said, nope, that's my Sabbath. Now, I disagree with that. I don't think, I don't think this hard, fast, I'm never doing anything, this is my Sabbath. I mean, unless we're living in Old Testament Israel and that's when God instituted and you pick up sticks on the Sabbath, I'm going to miss that guy. 

But at the same time, I do think there has to be a boundary. There has to be some margin. There has to be a way to submit to the pastor. So let's speak to those young ministers. There must be a way to respectfully submit to the pastor and at the same time ask if there's any kind of way you can come to a compromise or a balance.

So  Some of the things that when I was a youth pastor, I was in that situation. I wasn't in leadership. I had a very similar situation. What I should have done back then, rather than burn the candle,  was I should have found some young people in our youth group who could have done some of the things I was doing.

Like, let me just give you an example. I was writing a newsletter for our youth group as a way to stay in contact. Yeah. Speaking of dating ourselves, writing a newsletter. Are you kidding me?  Yeah. This is before social media. There was such a dark day. In Listener, it was probably on typewriter. Right. It was a Smith Corona. 

So I'm writing this newsletter for our youth group. Never dawned on me that one of our students should be doing this. One of our students. Could be doing this one of our young adults could be should be doing this. I was creating the directory for the church  I didn't have to do that. What I had to do was set the vision  teach disciple our students That's what I had to do the rest of it a lot of the admin stuff even some of the maintenance stuff I was doing which nothing wrong with it If I had the time to do it, but I didn't always have the time to do it.

So I was stressed out all the time. I look back. If I had to go back to those days, I would have trained somebody to be doing some of those things I was doing. So even if I wasn't able to have balance right now, I would be able to see some light at the end of this very dark tunnel that somebody's helping me.

One of the philosophies my pastor has right now is everybody in ministry, volunteer ministry, everybody needs to look for their successor. So, let's say you're a youth pastor, you need to be training the next youth pastor. If you're music, you need to be training the next music director, the next keyboard player.

You need to be training the next Audio engineer, whoever, whatever you're doing. If you're mowing the lawn, if you've got 12 acres in a zero turn or 12 acres and you've got an Amish mower that doesn't even power, it's just one of those that you push. You need to be training somebody on how to mow those straight lines like you're mowing them now that way.

And this is another principle my pastor uses. If you're in the hospital,  who would be doing what you're doing?  And the tragic truth is,  if we continue at this unsustainable pace.  We will be in the hospital.  I was, I was sharing a story yesterday, in fact, with a friend of mine that I was called to pinch hit preach for a well known youth congress general conference level preacher at a youth rally one night because he had suffered a TIA  because he was going, going, going, going.

And I don't know anybody in my life I can think of who has a deeper prayer life, closer walk with God, hears from God, speaks for God, but God instituted this  Principle in the body,  that if you don't rest, the body will make you rest. It's kind of like the principle in 2 Chronicles 36, where Israel never observed the seventh year Sabbath for the land to give it rest.

So God sent them off to Babylon so the land could have the rest God promised the land would have. Either we will choose to rest  or our body will make us rest. One of the two will happen. So I would ask myself. If I'm in the hospital,  who will do what I'm doing? Because there is somebody who will do what you're doing, even if you feel like nobody else can.

That'd be the first step. Start looking for somebody you can delegate to and bring them alongside you and see if they can help you out, carry some of that load.  

And if not, go back to what you said and politely, respectfully ask if there's some sort of compromise. Absolutely. 

You just say, you know what, can I have one Saturday a month?

Can I have two Saturdays a month? Whatever that looks like. But  I do believe God honors honor.  So by no means am I ever advocating just telling a pastor, no, I'll do what I want. That's God can't and won't honor that. However, he will honor honor. So if you can't get that compromise, then just try to find somebody either way, find somebody who can help you out  on a volunteer basis.

I did work up the nerve to back out of Spanish lessons. Tuesday night was our, cause we were, we had adopted a Spanish ministry on Sunday nights, and therefore we had a.  A missionary coming on Tuesday and giving a Spanish lessons. Oh, okay. All right. And so I had asked if I could bow out of Spanish lessons, attending Spanish lessons on Tuesday. 

That go okay. He, he did. He agreed to that on the conditions that I still come to church on Sunday nights. 

Of course. Okay. I get to see there's compromise if I can come out. So in Mount Vernon, we had a hopping celebrate recovery. It was going amazing. I mean, we had people, all of us. Ankle monitors everywhere, tattoos everywhere.

It was awesome. And many of them were coming to Sunday. They were coming, being baptized, filled with the spirit. It was wonderful. And then God opened the door for me to go into the jail and have a Bible study there. And a lot of them were some of the same people. People so I had a good relationship.  Well, man, I was going Monday.

It was supposed to be my day off, but it wasn't Tuesday I was in the jail Wednesday I was teaching Bible study or teaching adult Bible study in the morning and the evening Thursday night I was at celebrate recovery with my wife and we looked at each other We said we're not even home with the girls any night of the week.

So we decided I'll go to the jail Tuesdays She'll go to see our Thursdays and we just had one simple night where we said we're gonna I'm gonna be home You're gonna be home. Somebody will be home with the girls and we had a little bit of rest that little action Was enough to give us hope that Tuesday's coming.

I'm in the jail. She's home Thursday's coming. She's a CR I'm home and it was a sacrifice because I wanted to go to CR because of the relationship we had built But I couldn't do it all  And again, I'm not even there right now. And yet somebody is going into the jail and somebody's doing CR. So there is somebody out there.

You just have to remember I'm not the Messiah.  And I'm not the only one who can do this. So, good on you to be able to have that compromise to get a little bit of margin.  

You're talking about going to the jail. I used to have a prison ministry. I'd go to the prison on Monday nights and would preach.  Make sure ministers that you explain to your children what you do.

It's because they went somewhere on Monday and they said, where's your dad?  He's in prison. 

Right.  That's awesome, man. I don't know if Arkansas has these houses of ill repute, but there's a place in Ohio called the lion's den, which is an adult bookstore. And I, I had taught my niece years ago when she was just a little girl, I'd been in an apartment complex service and was teaching all these children.

And I included my niece in my telling of the story of Daniel and the lion's den. So I put her in the lion's den and explained how  Daniel only prayed to God and it got him thrown into a lion's den, but God delivered him and all that to tell the whole story. So my, my niece goes home and tells my sister, who is her mom, says, Hey mom, uncle LJ took me to the lion's den today. 

And she's like, what?  So yeah, 

context matters. You're the cool uncle now. Yeah.  The cool uncle now. 

When we're, when we're talking to these young ministers about these, Things we always generalize  expressions and we say things like, do what's best for you. I've heard that said to me a million times. We don't really say what that is, or how do you determine what's best for you? Because sometimes we, Bible tells us not to compare ourselves, but, but yeah, right.

But  a habit to look over, okay, they've got X, Y, Z ministry, or like, how do you determine what's best for you?  Part of it is,  

part of it is living with yourself for a while. So when I got to Gateway College, I had a kid walk up to me and, man, I wanted to be a preacher. I want to be a  bitten,  fiery, red faced preacher.

And this one kid walked up to me after about three weeks of knowing me and said, I believe God's called you to be a teacher. And I was ticked off. I wanted to be a preacher. I don't want to be a teacher. Teachers are boring. They wear sweaters and they, they're boring and they wear bow ties.  You can't see it on the video, but I'm wearing a bow tie. 

After a while though, after living with myself for a while, I realized I am a teacher.  This is a whole other conversation. Teaching is not just telling and preaching is yelling. I've heard that before.  Teaching is imparting. Preaching is preaching to the heart. Teaching is more to the head.  But I am a teacher.

So in Mount Vernon, I was most fulfilled. I think this is one way, you know, what you're called to do is what fills you up. I was most fulfilled when I was teaching. When I was teaching our Wednesday Bible study, I had morning midweek for the adults who couldn't drive or wouldn't drive at night. So I taught them at 1030, same lesson I taught at 730 to the couples and the young adults and others who came at the night midweek.

And I loved it. It was a blast to teach two times on one day, it was so much fun for me. That's what filled me up. So that's what I realized God had called me to do and write. I love to write and I've written a few books that is enjoyable to me. So now this role I'm doing right now with curriculum allows me to teach, to write, to work with teachers, work with writers.

I mean, I'm, I'm as happy as a seagull with a french fry.  But that's when I found out what I was called to do. I love to preach,  but I'm not a fiery spitting, red faced, fist pumping preacher. I am more of a teacher.  I do think as you  do whatever you're doing, if it's not filling you up, if it's draining you, that's probably not what God created you to do.

But if you love the idea. Of getting to do what you're doing. That probably is what God created you to do. So I would just ask myself what fills me up, what drains me. And then that'll be somewhat of a gauge on what we really are created to do.  

That's good answer. And I was going to call you out for the bow ties.

I was saving it for the ending, but yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Sorry.  Yeah. I mean, I 

was, I was.  I am the quintessential stereotypical preacher.  I thought you were going to say nerd.  I'm that too. Hey man, for two weeks when I was a youth pastor, I tried the grunge look. The shredded jeans and back, this is early 2000s, so grunge back then with shredded jeans, untucked t shirt, Like that was just the grunge look that worked for two weeks.

And I went back to cardigans and bow ties. Cause that that's just not me.  

I understand. I understand. Yeah. My wife dresses me occasionally. I walk out and she says, no, and I got to go back in and try something. 

I'm looking at I want to make sure before I change gears here, we talked about the greatest enemy and you said it was the messiah complex, but what are some other obstacles you think? So maybe things we don't think about hidden obstacles. 

Balance.  I do.  Let me, let me, let me mention this resource. This is a great book.

I read it. It was convicting. It's called addicted to busy. 

Yes, I've read that book. 

Okay. I think it's Brady Boyd. 

Let me 

pull it up right now. 

I think so.  

Addicted to Busy by Brady Boyd. Excellent book. And when I was reading it, I mean, it absolutely diagnosed me. Like I would,  I wanted to impress people so they could see my calendar and see how full it was.

Or I wanted to show people that I was busy. I was in demand. I was whatever. When people would say, man, I know you're busy. Like, I just kind of thought that was a badge of honor. I think that's a big obstacle to balance. Disorganization is a big obstacle to balance.  If you don't have some kind of organization in your life that can create margin, for example, what I use with bookings is this is a, where I'm working right now is a three seasons week.

And by that, I mean, we are going live with our fall curriculum Tuesday. We are going to print with our winter curriculum this week, and we are starting on our spring curriculum. I unwisely  Last week, and this is part of the reason we had to reschedule. I unwisely left that week open. So if somebody needed to meet with me or anything, it's like, Oh yeah.

And I ended up having several meetings that were, that could have been postponed.  during a three seasons week. I should have done that, but I didn't. So, what I did recently is I went through and I blocked out an entire week and just said, this week I need to focus on  editing curriculum, whatever it is I'm working on.

So, I think that helps. That would be one of the helps. The obstacle would be, of course, disorganization. So, some kind of system whereby you can create margin, Defend margin and make sure you have some balance. Disorganization, messiah complex, need to be busy, that kind of stuff I think are the major obstacles. 

Insecurity,  that I feel like my value only comes from what I do and if I'm not doing something, I'm not valuable. That's, I see that among young ministers a lot, and that's not true. And I tell them that one day you're not going to be pastoring and when you're not pastoring, who are you?  Well, I'm a child of God.

Like I'll tell the story.  One of my police officers was going through a major struggle and he was having a difficult time with this, that, and the other. His job was on the line. His family was on the line. It was all going in this way and he came to church. He repented of his sins. He was baptized in Jesus name, filled with the Holy Ghost.

And one of the, somebody called him up one day and said, man, I heard what you're going through. I'm so sorry. You're losing everything. And he said, I'm not losing everything. I'm a child of God. No one can take that from me. Oh man,  I've met pastors  who if they're not pastoring, they don't know who they are.

Exactly. If somebody doesn't say, hey pastor,  they don't have an identity.  But long after you're not pastoring or you're not a pastor. Working where you're working, or you're not known as this world renowned anything.  You can rest assured that I'm still a child of God. He's my dad. I'm his kid. I belong to him.

He is mine. And no one can take that from me.  

I was thinking that's absolutely right. But I thought one that gets misunderstood or not thought about is distraction. Okay.  I think it was Winston Churchill that said, if you throw a, a rock at every barking dog, you'll never get to where you're going.  The devil Such a great statement.

Yeah. The the devil will cause a fight  and,  and will fight him because we think he's the enemy. But our job is not to fight. The enemy is to finish the journey.  Wow, that's good, bud.  So if we, if we fight the devil, every time he pops up, we'll never get to where we're going. 

Yeah, that's a really great statement. 

And I did that as thought I had to be the Avenger and, you know, and fight every battle. And 

sure. 

Sometimes we just got to learn to let things go.  Let the barking dogs bark. 

That's very true. Let the barking dogs bark.  What a great statement.  

Well, I'm looking through here. Last question. Yes, sir.  What do you wish you had done sooner? 

Oh, man.  Delegate. I'm wishing, wishing so much. I had involved more people in the process. I had delegated.  I had  brought in more minds than just trying to do it all myself.  That's my biggest regret.  Youth pastoring, pastoring, is that I didn't delegate.  

Well, there you have it, folks.  I was thinking,  I'm so honored to have the great and wise L.

J. Harry. You mentioned you had written a couple books, I know of 52, 10 Words, and Blessed Are.  Am I missing one? No, sir. Nope. Those are the three. Okay. Are you, 

are you working on another one? I am actually. The lovely Andrea and I are working on a co writing, a devotional. It'll be, it'll be very much like Simplify, the 52 week devotional, but it'll be I don't know, maybe 60 day devotional and it'll be her and me and she's an outstanding writer.

So if this gets published, this is a chance for the world to get to hear her voice and she's a great writer. So I'm excited about this project.  

You know, I, I call it a 52, but I was referring to simplify. Cause yeah, absolutely.  Nothing wrong with nicknames. I like it. It's kind of a street name. And for those that are listening, there is a podcast where he breaks it down.

It's available. I am an audible only book ingester because of my. Driving that? I do. 

Oh yeah. 

That's how I balance yeah, because I, I drive 45 minutes to work. I drive so far to church. Yep. Audible just speaks to me. I fly all the time. So the fact, oh yeah. The fact that, and also you have you narrated Jerry Jones'.

We preach. Thank you for putting that on Audible. Absolutely. 

There are several, I think there are seven PPH titles that I did not author that are out there for Audible. Hopefully more coming.  One of the  requests have been young ministers, much like yourself, who need an audible version of it rather than a book version of it, especially for credentialing books that are necessary to read for licensure, then we're putting more on audible.

So hopefully I'll get to be the voice on some of those. And then yeah, 50 or simplify. Blessed are, and 10 words are all three available on Audible. I  

highly suggest those. Now I do have those in print. I had them in the church library because I believe in them. So by all means, check them out, check out his podcast.

He did continue the podcast by request. People wanted them to continue doing that. Yeah. Speaking of PPH and audible, man, go back to the classics, grab JT pews, the power of the pulpit and put that on the, on audible. That's a good idea. Yeah, absolutely. That would be good.  Cause 

I need these things. I know, I know.

I know. Well, Hey, do just send a, if there is a book you're looking for an audible, I think if the human cry is loud enough, then the PRG will say, okay, this is one of those we wanted to move to the top of the list. So if you do have a request, just email customer service.  At Pentecostal publishing. com and say, would you consider putting this book or these books on audible and they're, they may absolutely go to the top of the list.

Okay. Yeah. That was not even available as a book because I actually, I actually pay for speechify. So I will take a  book and make it audible audio, you know, that's how addicted to audio books. I am right now. Is that, is that a human voice or is that more AI? Speechify is human.  Very good. Now it's, it's probably AI that sounds human, but sure.

And it, they do read it.  They'll mispronounce a word as, as an AI would, but it's, it is not robotic like this. It sounds like, yes, talk. So therefore it's,  It's not much more different than an audible would other than the mispronunciation of a word. 

Yes One of the totally off the subject, but one of the struggles with recording for audible like Brother Jones We preach book.

There's a story in there about Hiroshima and in that story are six primarily oriental names That when you're writing, no problem, you don't have to pronounce them, but when you're reading and narrating, oh, oh, come on. And then some other books like Doctrines of the Bible that deal with Hebrew and Greek words and phrases.

Come on. So I rely very heavily on translation services to help me know how those are pronounced. 

Absolutely. 

Yeah. 

Well, thank you so much for coming on, brother. I appreciate you. It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much for those listening. I have given him the hardest of times. He has been the blunt of any of my jokes. 

So  this did, this did not come easy to him. I promise you. It was a pleasure. Came at a cost.  All right. Well listeners, I do have a new YouTube channel beyond the mic with Mike is on YouTube. I only have, I'm going back to the old episodes and I'm adding video illustrations to it. And right now the first one's the only one out there, but give it a shot.

Give it a like, a subscribe, continue to like, and subscribe to podcasts. LJ, do you have anything else you need to promote and push anything? No, 

sir. It's an honor. Good to be on here. Thank you so much. And thanks to all the beyond the mic with Mike listeners. Appreciate you. And you, sir.